Students begin oral exams with assessors unhired and unpaid by the State

Thousands of students have this week begun oral Irish exams with teachers who are not paid by the State Examinations Commission ahead of a strike on Thursday over teacher opposition to such practices.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) oppose assessing their own students for parts of a revised Junior Certificate. Instead, they say, all exams should be conducted by SEC-employed personnel only.

Their second strike day comes after talks with Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan last week failed to break the impasse on the junior cycle reforms.

But Junior Certificate students at hundreds of schools are likely to be examined in an optional spoken test for which the SEC does not pay examiners. Instead, they are conducted by teachers within schools or by privately-paid individuals, and the marks will be notified after Easter to the SEC for addition to scores from the written exams in June.

Although participation rates will not be known until later this year, the Irish Examiner revealed last autumn that students at more than one-third of the country’s 720 second-level schools were examined in this way last year. The numbers have shot up from just 54 schools in 2010 to 253 in 2014, a jump lined to an increase to 40% in the marks available for Leaving Certificate oral Irish.

ASTI directs members not to engage in any assessment for Junior or Leaving Certificate unless it is organised and paid for by the SEC, but says schools organise non-staff to do the work. But the TUI allows members carry out oral Irish tests with their own or other students, subject to the work being done within their timetable or on a paid basis, and once suitable training is provided.

After the one-day strike by 27,000 teachers on December 2, TUI president Gerry Quinn told the Irish Examiner he expected his union’s policy would change. The issue was raised at an executive meeting last Friday.

“A commitment was made to deal with this anomaly as a legacy issue. While there cannot be any change for this school year, it is intended that it will be reversed for subsequent years,” a TUI spokesperson said.

The unions decided Thursday’s strike would go ahead when no progress was made at a two-hour meeting with Ms O’Sullivan and Department of Education officials last Wednesday. However, pressure is growing on all sides to find a resolution, with parents concerned about the impact on student Junior and Leaving Certificate preparations.

The unions say teachers oppose anything but SEC-organised external assessment for the Junior Certificate.

Ms O’Sullivan decided in November that final written exams would continue to be marked externally through the SEC, but she still wants 40% of marks to be awarded by students’ own teachers for two pieces of coursework in each subject, during second year and third year.